Indonesia to revoke 22 forestry permits after floods that killed over 1,000 people

Indonesia will revoke more than 20 forestry permits across the country, the forestry minister said on Monday, after deadly floods and landslides devastated parts of the northwestern island of Sumatra.

Environmentalists and experts have pointed to the role forest loss played in flash flooding and landslides that this month killed more than 1,000 people and washed torrents of mud into villages.

The government will revoke 22 forestry permits that encompass more than one million hectares of land, Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni told reporters.

More than 100,000 hectares covered by the cancelled permits were on Sumatra, he said, though he did not mention whether the decision was linked to the recent disaster.

“With the addition of another one million hectares today, around 1.5 million hectares of our forests have been regulated,” he said, referring to the total following his decision in February to revoke permits that encompassed around 500,000 hectares of land.

  

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